Rixensart-based start-up Risorce has raised 12,5 million euros to build a new factory in Baelen, Liège, which will eventually be able to recycle 2,4 million used car tires a year.

This will be done through pyrolysis. In the process, the tires will be processed into mainly oil. By 2025, the plant should be fully operational and able to recycle about half of all used tires in Belgium.

18 000 tons of tire granulate per year

Belgium is a champion when it comes to recycling car tires. According to Recytyre, the Belgian organization responsible for recycling used tires, 85 844 tons of used tires were collected in Belgium last year. More than 99,8% of this waste was recovered.

The same Recytyre, together with Liège investment fund Noshaq and Wallonie Entreprendre, among others, will invest in Risorce (Renewable, Innovative Solutions toward Recycling & Circular Economy) to build a used tires recycling plant in the province of Liège.

The site will house six waste processing units and process 18 000 tons of tire granulation per year, equivalent to 2 400 000 tires, or half of all car tires collected annually in Belgium.

Less polluting process

Most of these used tires will be shredded, and the rubber particles will be separated from the textile and metal materials used in various industrial processes, such as sports floors, shock-absorbing or sound-damping materials, street furniture, or road asphalt.

But Risorce, founded in 2022 by Bernard van den Wouwer, now wants to use pyrolysis, a process in which the material is decomposed by heating it to high temperatures (200°C to 900 °C) without oxygen being able to reach it, to produce oil from those car tires, which will be sold as a raw material to European petrochemical companies.

The other products of the pyrolysis process, soot and gas, will be used in industrial processes or for the plant’s operational needs.

The advantage of the process developed by Resorce and, according to the newspaper L’Echo, invented by a Bosnian company, SGI Technology, is that it is much less polluting than other tire recycling methods, says the start-up.

‘Turning point’

“The traditional rubber recycling industry is at a turning point,” says Chris Lorquet, CEO of Recytyre. “It needs to reinvent itself. The future of material circularity lies in the chemical processing of tire components.”

The plant, which will be built next year, will be located in the East Belgium Park development zone in Baelen, in the province of Liège. The plant will create around 20 jobs.

According to the company, no unit of this type is yet operating on an industrial scale in Belgium and neighboring countries. However, Wastefront, a Norwegian rubber waste recycling company, also uses pyrolysis technology.

In Europe, every year, more than three million tons of end-of-life tires are collected and treated through various recycling and recovery processes. It is estimated that 29 million metric tons of vehicle tires reach the end of their lifespan each year.

The EU banned tires from landfills due to the risk of heavy metals and other pollutants leaking toxins into the water table.

In 2020, UK emissions testing firm Emissions Analytics published a research paper claiming that tire particulate wear emissions were 1 000 times worse than exhaust emissions.